The next shot was of the same baby having some acupuncture: was this really
the same child? He was gurgling, interested, looking around and making
all the experienced treating children, I wouldn’t have believed it. But
there he was, chirruping away as my colleague gently inserted a few tiny
needles and then after a few seconds removed them. A few words of what we
call ‘lifestyle’ advice – usually diet – and he and his mum were on their way.
Increasingly in this country and around the western world the above is
becoming a more common occurrence. Acupuncture has an enormous amount to offer in the paediatric health arena. It does
not by any means take the place of a mother/child:doctor relationship, but at
times there is little a GP can offer and this is where medical techniques
passed on down the millennia have a part to play.
For instance Theresa - names changed - brought little Karen (13 months)
into the clinic as she’d been vomiting a lot for the past five days and was a
wee bit out of sorts. On examination, Karen had some extra redness in her
cheeks and a slightly swollen abdomen. Her sleep had been disrupted and
she had diarrhoea which was pretty smelly. I asked about her diet and it
transpired they had just returned from a family holiday in Italy two days
ago. They had taken a villa which had an abundance of fruit growing all
over the place – edible grapes and figs especially. An infant’s digestive
system is a very sensitive apparatus and takes a while to develop from
processing nothing (foetus), to mothers milk - ‘babe in arms phase’ - to soft
solids, and beyond. And so when faced with something it’s not used to and
in this case lots of it, food can get a bit stuck in the system.
This causes something of a blockage, what we call ‘Accumulation
Disorder’ - where the food stays too long in the digestive tract, “over-rotting
and ripening” as the Chinese would say; the normal downward flow of energy in
the system is prevented and so it ‘rebels’ back up causing vomiting!
In little Karen’s case, my job therefore was to clear the blockage to
allow the resumption of a normal flow of energy. This entailed pricking four
points on the hand and telling Theresa to give her plenty of water and stick to
simple food if she was hungry.
I had a call the next day, “Karen’s not been sick again, and a couple of
hours after getting home, after one massive poo, her diarrhoea completely
disappeared and she sat up, crawled and began laughing again!”
Children can respond very quickly to energy medicine sucha as
acupuncture but sadly not all complaints can be cleared as quickly as
Karen’s. However, straightforward Accumulation Disorder, is very simple
to treat and can be the root cause of many infant complaints: insomnia,
learning difficulties, vaccination complications, recurrent colds, coughs and
more.
I appreciate the thought of allowing a relative stranger to gently
insert needles into your child is counter-intuitive to a mother’s sense of
protection. But when you begin to weigh up the possible short-lived
discomfort against the sleepless nights, or recurrent cough and so on, intuition
can begin to tip the scales. Besides, it may be less of an ordeal than
changing a nappy!
Tom Lawrence
Edinburgh Acupuncture & Oriental Herbs
Cognitive Hypnotherapy Edinburgh
Life Coaching
